The main antagonist of the first anime adaptation of the anime/manga series Fullmetal Alchemist (2001) is a woman named Dante, who controls seven homunculi (which are featured in all versions of Fullmetal Alchemist) that are named after the seven deadly sins and each of which represent one of the seven terraces of purgatorio. They also suffer deaths or injuries similar to the punishment associated with the terrace each is named after. The Gate in this series is visually represented by Rodin's sculpture The Gates of Hell.

Eagle-eyed viewers of Code Geass R2‘s first episode may have spotted that Lelouch is reading Dante’s Divina Commedia (Purgatorio Canto XXII) while Rollo gives him a lift.[2]

In an episode of the animated comedy series Futurama titled "Hell is Other Robots (1999)", the character Bender is dragged to robot hell, the entrance of which is hidden in an abandoned carnival ride called "Inferno". In a musical sequence, the levels of hell are described, each level complete with ironic punishments.

DC/Vertigo comics' Kid Eternity (which premiered in Hit Comics #25, published by Quality Comics in December 1942.), in which Kid and his companion Jerry Sullivan travel to a Dante-inspired Hell to free a partner of Kid's. The structure of the comic also draws features from Dante's Inferno.

DC/Vertigo comics's Lucifer, based on characters from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, featuring aspects of a Dante-inspired Hell and Heaven, particularly the Primum Mobile and Nine sections of Hell.

Mickey's Inferno is a comic book adaptation written by Guido Martina and drawn by Angelo Bioletto featuring classic Disney characters including Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck published by the then-Italian Disney comic book licensee Mondadori in the monthly Topolino from Oct. 1949 to March 1950. An English-language version appeared in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #666 [March 2006].

The anime, Saint Seiya, more specifically in the arc "Hades Inferno" has, not only personages, but all the structure of the hell based on the circles of Dante, but here being called the 9th Prisons.

An issue of the first volume of comic book adaptations of Star Trek by DC Comics, "Hell in a Handbasket", involves Captain Kirk and his crew being subjected to a telepathic hallucination of Hell, as described in The Divine Comedy, when an ill telepath who was recently reading the book generates an illusion that turns the entire Enterprise- save for the bridge, due to its distance from him- into Hell, forcing the senior staff to descend through a Hell populated by crewmembers who have subconsciously 'judged' themselves to find the telepath so that Spock can mind-meld with him and restore his sense of reality.

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic series features a heavily Dante-inspired Hell, including the woods of Suicide, the Malebolge, and the City of Dis. Lucifer is also imprisoned in Hell.

The visual novel and anime series Umineko no Naku Koro ni contains several elements from the Divine Comedy, including two characters named Beatrice (as the Golden Witch), Virgilia (as the Endless Witch) and the Stakes (Seven Deadly Sins).

The anime adaptation has an ending theme entitled La Divina Tragedia ~Makyoku~, named after the title La Divina Comedia. "Makyoku" is the opposite of "Shinkyoku", Divine Comedy's Japanese title.

The fourth Uncanny X-Men Annual, "Nightcrawler's Inferno", chronicles the descent of Doctor Strange and the X-Men into a facsimile of Hell based on Dante's Inferno, to rescue Nightcrawler from an illusion created by his adopted mother, who blames him for the death of his adopted brother (Unaware of the fact that Nightcrawler only killed his brother because the other man had become a murderer).[4]

iDante: interactive version of the poem for the iPad and iPhone featuring fully colorized illustrations from Gustave Doré, 3D reconstructions of key environments, iconic maps of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise

The Inferno embedded operating system takes its name and the names of many of its components from the Divine Comedy, such the Dis virtual machine, its implementation of the 9P protocol (Styx), the main programming language Limbo, and the Charon web browser. This was allegedly because Ken Thompson was reading the Commedia while working on the design of Inferno.[citation needed]

Pandemonium, the highest-level zone in the Anarchy Online expansion Shadowlands, is split into four parts, each named after one of the four parts of the Ninth Circle.

In Bayonetta, they used many references to the Divine Comedy. Rodin, one of Bayonetta's allies, owns a store called "Gates of Hell". There are also three realms that the witch can travel between; they are called "Purgatory", "Paradiso" and "Inferno". Rodin's name on its own is a reference as well, after the sculptor Auguste Rodin, who sculpted a statue based on Inferno called the Gates of Hell.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow feature several spear-wielding flying demons named after the Malebranche: Cagnazzo, Scarmaglione, Rubicant, Draghignazzo, Barbariccia and Malacoda. Rubicant and Scarmaglione are mistranslated as "Lubicant" and "Skull Millione."

In Devil May Cry 4, when the player dies the screen will shatter and read 'Abandon all hope...'. A portion titled 'The Ninth Circle' is designed around a massive statue of a devil. One of the characters in the game, Agnus, is named after the Agnus Dei, prayer for the Third Terrace of Purgatory in the Divine Comedy. Also the game has special mode where one of the protagonists must progress through 101 stages. On the Xbox 360 version the player receives a gaming achievement for every ten levels completed up to the ninth. These achievements are named after the nine circles of hell. The game's references to Dante's works go beyond the Divine Comedy, since the last mission is called La Vita Nuova.

In DmC Devil May Cry, Limbo City (named after the first circle of the Inferno) is the main location of the game's events. The city appears as a dreary landscape, but transforms into a twisted, chaotic parody of itself whenever Dante is caught in the sight of one of the city's demonic security cameras.

The third episode of the video game Doom, appropriately called Inferno, takes place in Hell, in such places as Limbo and Dis.

The Planescape setting, in particular, borrows many elements from the book (some wholesale, some piecemeal), and much of the expanded cosmology, with dimensions for the dead based on alignment and most dimensions having many separate layers, are inspired by those seen in the Inferno.

The cross-genre role-playing gameShadowrun features Dante's Inferno as the most popular club in the Seattle metroplex. The club is nine stories tall and the bottommost floor is a private floor marked "Hell".

Europa Universalis 3 features advisors that the player hires to his court - the Philosopher's portrait is modeled after Dante.

In Fallout 3, there is a bar called "The 9th Circle" in the city of Underworld. The bar's bouncer is named Charon; a robot guarding the city is named Cerberus.

Final Fantasy IV features four Elemental Lords named Rubicante, Scarmiglione, Barbariccia, and Cagnazzo, after members of the Malebranche. A mid-game boss, Calcabrina, also has the name of a Malebranche demon. Also, there exists a superboss in the DS version named Geryon.

Also, Final Fantasy VI's final boss resembles a colossal mass of Satan entrapped to his waist (Hell), humans, animals and machinery (Purgatory), and a strange but yet angelic duo of celestial entities atop the totem of non-existence (Heaven), with the insane Kefka as the deity of magic and death flying above who tells the players that life is meaningless once they scale his tower of destruction. In the French localization of the series as a whole, the recurring summon Ifrit's ultimate attack is directly named after the Divine Comedy.

Halo 3: ODST contains many references to the poem. For example, the Rookie is called into Section Nine, which is very icy and cold, similar to the ninth ring of Hell. In addition, the player's guide through the end of the game is called Vergil. Further, there are characters in the game that correspond to each of the sins.

The fifth act of Rainbow Six: Vegas takes place in a casino that is under construction called "Dante's". The first chapter is called "Hell's Gate".

The 2012 game Resident Evil: Revelations references Dante's Inferno extensively, as a bioterrorist organization, "Il Veltro", believes society has degraded into a living version of the nine circles. Verses of the poem are provided at the start of each level. A number of enemies in the game are named after the Malebranche also featured in the poem. The music in the final chapter has a choir eerily singing lines from Inferno, and the final boss actually quotes it before entering his chamber.

Tamashii no Mon (translation: "Gate of Souls") is a computer game developed by Koei and released on the PC98 computer system in 1994. It is an adventure that closely follows Dante's journey through Inferno.[citation needed]

In The Last Remnant, there is a boss that is loosely based on the Gates of Hell. The background music that plays while fighting this boss is also called "The Gates of Hell".

In 1999's Theme Park World, the advisor says, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here," at the start of Halloween World. This is a reference to Inferno.

In Wild Arms 2, there is a gang called Cocytus, whose members are named Caina, Antenora, Ptolomea, and Judecca.

In World of Warcraft, a sign before the entrance to Deadwind Pass states, "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here."

The trading card game Yu-Gi-Oh! recently released a series of cards known as "Burning Abyss". All cards in the series are based on the Eighth Circle of Hell and the Malebranche, including Dante and Virgil.

Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343-1400) is responsible for a number of translations and adaptations of, and explicit references to, Dante's work.[8]

"A Complaynt to His Lady," an early short poem, is written in terza rima, the rhyme scheme Dante invented for the Comedy.

Anelida and Arcite ends with a "compleynt" by Anelida, the lover jilted by Arcite; the compleynt begins with the phrase "So thirleth with the poynt of remembraunce" and ends with "Hath thirled with the poynt of remembraunce," copied from Purgatory 12.32, "la punctura di la rimembranza."

The House of Fame, a dream vision in three books in which the narrator is guided through the heavens by an otherworldly guide, has been described as a parody of the Comedy. The narrator echoes Inferno 2.32 in the poem (2.588-92).

Milton refers to Dante's insistence on the separation of worldly and religious power in Of Reformation, where he cites Inferno 19.115-117.

Beatrice's condemnation of corrupt and neglectful preachers, Paradiso 29.107-9 ("so that the wretched sheep, in ignorance, / return from pasture, having fed on wind") is translated and adapted in Lycidas 125-26, "The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed, / But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw," when Milton condemns corrupt clergy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who translated the Divine Comedy into English, also wrote a poem titled "Mezzo Cammin" ("Halfway," 1845), alluding to the first line of the Comedy,[12] and a sonnet sequence (of six sonnets) under the title "Divina Commedia" (1867), published as flyleaves to his translation.[13]

Karl Marx uses a paraphrase of Purgatory (V, 13) to conclude the preface to the first edition of Das Kapital (1867), as a kind of motto: "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti" ("follow your own road, and let the people talk").[14]

Primo Levi cites Dante's Divine Comedy in the chapter called "Canto of Ulysses" in his novel Se questo è un uomo (If This Is a Man) (1947), published in the United States as Survival in Auschwitz, and in other parts of this book; the fires of Hell are compared to the "real threat of the fires of the crematorium."[20]

Malcolm Lowry paralleled Dante's descent into hell with Geoffrey Firmin's descent into alcoholism in his epic novel Under the Volcano (1947). In contrast to the original, Lowry's character explicitly refuses grace and "chooses hell," though Firmin does have a Dr. Virgil as a guide (and his brother, Hugh Firmin, quotes the Comedy from memory in ch. 6).[21]

Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote extensively about Dante,[18][22] included two short texts in his Dreamtigers (El Hacedor, 1960): "Paradiso, XXXI, 108" and "Inferno, I, 32," which paraphrase and comment on Dante's lines.[23][24]

Poet Derek Walcott, in 1949, publishes Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos, which he later acknowledged as deliberately influenced by Dante.[18]

James Merrill published his Divine Comedies, a collection of poetry, in 1976; a selection in that volume, "The Book of Ephraim," consists "of conversations held, via the Ouija board, with dead friends and spirits in 'another world.'"[25]

Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills (1985) uses Dante's Inferno as a model for the trek made by two young black poets who spend the days before Christmas doing odd jobs in an affluent African American community. The young men soon discover the price paid by the inhabitants of Linden Hills for pursuing the American dream.[28]

The main characters of Stephen King's Wizard and Glass (1997) have to cross a door within a building reminiscent of the palace of the Wizard from the film The Wizard of Oz: "The sign on this door wasn't from the movie, and only Susannah knew it was from Dante. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, it said".[30]

Mark E. Rogers used the structure of Dante's hell in his 1998 comedic novelSamurai Cat Goes to Hell (the last book in the Samurai Cat series), and includes a gate to hell whose inscription reads "YOU'VE HAD YOUR FUN / YOU'VE MADE YOUR BED / YOU'RE BOUND FOR HELL / NOW THAT YOU'RE DEAD / ABANDON ALL HOPE YE THAT ENTER HERE."[31]

Irish poet Seamus Heaney publishes a poem on the front page of the Irish Times (18 January 2000) that begins with a translation of Paradiso 33.58-61.[32]

The Amber Spyglass (2000) by Philip Pullman includes several references to Dante's vision of hell, including the concept of Harpies, an ascent along the flinty steps in the Eighth Circle of Hell (Inferno, Canto XXVI); and the two main characters emerging from their experience of hell back onto the earth to look at the stars (last line of Inferno).

Nick Tosches's In The Hand of Dante (2002) weaves a contemporary tale about the finding of an original manuscript of the Divine Comedy with an imagined account of Dante's years composing the work.[33]

Inferno by Peter Weiss (written in 1964, published in 2003) is a play inspired by the Comedy, the first part of a planned trilogy.[34]

The Dante Club is a 2003 novel by Matthew Pearl that tells the story of various American poets translating The Divine Comedy in post-civil warBoston, who must also investigate murders being committed based on the punishments in the text, due to their desire to protect Dante's reputation and the fact that only they have the necessary expertise to understand the murderer's motivations.[33]

In 2004 and 2005, Giulio Leoni publishes two crime novels, I delitti del mosaico and I delitti della luce respectively, in which Dante is an investigator.[33]

Dante himself is a character in The Master of Verona (2007), a novel by David Blixt that combines the people of Dante's time with the characters of Shakespeare's Italian plays.[38]

Robert Penn Warren references Dante's Divine Comedy on the opening page of his novel All the King's Men with a line from Purgatory, III: Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde, meaning "As long as hope still has its bit of green."

Paul Thigpen′s novel My Visit to Hell is an “extended parable” about hell in which he borrows “the moral topography of . . . Dante′s 'Inferno.'” It is an adaptation of his earlier novel, Gehenna, published in 1992, and what Thigpen refers to as “the latest addition to a genre of such literature known as ‘tours of hell.’” His contemporary interpretation produces more impact with its explicit references to historical figures and issues reflective of today's culture.[39]

S.A. Alenthony's novel The Infernova is a parody of the Inferno as seen from an atheist's perspective, with Mark Twain acting as the guide.[40]

Sylvian Reynards's Gabriels inferno (2012) a modern day version of Dante and Beatrice, with many references to Dante. These books are based on the forbidden love between a Dante specialist/lecturer and a student. Romance novels. Gabriels inferno, Gabriels rapture and Gabriels redemption. First book published in 2012."[41]

The first scene of the movie Clerks II (2006) is titled "Dante's Inferno".

In the movie 300 (2007), Ephialtes of Trachis is the Greek that betrays the Spartans to their doom. Ephialtes is also the name of one of the Giants guarding the 9th circle of Hell — Treachery. Ephialtes being a historical figure, however, this is probably a coincidence.

The film Dante's Inferno (2007) is based on Sandow Birk's contemporary drawings of the Divine Comedy. The film accurately retells the original story, but with the addition of more recent residents of Hell such as Adolf Hitler and Boss Tweed.

In the movie The Bucket List, businessman Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) asks if his employees have ever read the Divine Comedy during a board meeting.

A 3D live-action film trilogy based on the three parts of the Divine Comedy produced by a company known as Master Films Productions is in the works. It is directed by Boris Acosta, and involves people who've worked on films such as The Lord of the Rings.

Various episodes of Mad Men refer to Dante's levels of Purgatory and Hell:

When Don and Betty separate, Don moves to a furnished apartment on "Waverly and Sixth" (as he tells the cab driver in the Season 4 episode, "The Summer Man"). In "The Summer Man", Don works to curtail his alcoholism, which according to the Purgatorio, would place him on the sixth terrace, reserved for the gluttonous who over-emphasized food, drink, and bodily comforts.[42]

Mad Men '​s season six premiere, "The Doorway", features Don Draper reading The Inferno while lying on a Hawaiian beach with his wife. It is later shown the book was given to him by a woman with whom Don is having an affair (the wife of his friend and downstairs neighbor, Dr. Rosen).

The 2005 BBC drama series Messiah IV: The Harrowing focuses on a serial killer who takes inspiration from Inferno to punish his or her victims.

Various episodes of The Sopranos refer to the Dante's circles of Hell. For example:

In "Join the Club" (2006), Tony has a recurring coma-dream in which he checks into Room 728 (i.e., level seven) at the Omni hotel in Costa Mesa, using the identity of non-mafia civilian Kevin Finnerty. When the hotel elevator is out of commission, Tony descends a red staircase, slips, and falls to level five. Tony's surgeon, Dr. Plepler, tells Tony's wife, sisters and daughter they're lucky Tony's at a Level 1trauma center. (Level one is Limbo[43]).

The Insurance Appraiser in the Season 5 episode Basic Story of Community recites from Paradiso,xvii.58 as he climbs the short staircase in the entrance of Greendale Community College: "And you shall find that salt is the taste of another man's bread, and hard is the way up and down another man's stairs."

In the Tenth season of Criminal Minds, The case in the second episode, "Burn", tracks the actions of a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by the punishment in each circle of Hell .

In Claudio Monteverdi's 1607 opera L'Orfeo, the title character is bombarded with the famous line "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate"[44] as he attempts to enter the underworld.

Franz Liszt's Symphony to Dante's Divina Commedia (completed 1856) has two movements: "Inferno" and "Purgatorio." A concluding "Magnificat" is included at the end of the "Purgatorio" movement and replaces the planned third movement, which was to be called "Paradiso" (Liszt was dissuaded by Richard Wagner from his original plan). Liszt also composed a Dante Sonata (started 1837, completed 1849).

Tangerine Dream has released albums setting all the three parts of The Divine Comedy to music: Inferno is a recording of a live performance at the St Marien zu Bernau Cathedral in 2001, and Purgatorio is a studio album from 2004.

The band STYX is named after the river of death found in Greek mythology and in Dante's Inferno.

Asaki's first album, Shinkyoku, is also the name of the Comedy in Japanese Kanji.

The Bright River is a hip-hop retelling of the Inferno by a traditional storyteller, Tim Barsky, with a live soundtrack performed by hip-hop and klezmer musicians.

In Weezer's album Make Believe, released May 10, 2005, there is hidden text in the pictures. The text reads "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita".

The song "Roll Right" on the album Evil Empire by Rage Against the Machine contains the refrain 'Send 'em to tha seventh level!' referencing the seventh circle (or level) of Hell, where the violent are held.

German Dark Electro band yelworC has made two albums of a trilogy based on the three canticas of the Divine Comedy, so far 'Trinity' and 'Icolation'.

Australian goth-electro band The Tenth Stage has a self-titled track (2006) that describes the singers descent past the nine stages of Dante's poem to a 10th stage of Hell.

The first song on metal band Decadence's debut album (2005), "Wrathfull and Sullen", is inspired by the fifth level of Hell.

Robert W. Smith's The Divine Comedy (CD, 2006) is a four-movement symphony for wind ensemble that depicts four stages of Dante's journey in a tone poem-like symphonic structure. The movements are "The Inferno", "Purgatorio", "The Ascension", and "Paradiso."

Finnish rock band HIM released Venus Doom (2007) of which all 9 songs represent the 9 circles of hell.

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's 2008 film opera in five parts La Commedia incorporates texts from Vondel and the Old Testament, in addition to The Divine Comedy. The 5 parts are "The City of Dis, or The Ship of Fools", "Racconto dall'Inferno", "Lucifer", "The Garden of Delights", and "Luce Etterna".[47]

In the fourth series of Bleak Expectations, the second episode spoofs Dante's Inferno. The underworld is depicted as a resting place for all souls before they enter their respective heavens or hells. Pip is guided through the underworld by Virgil Grimpunch when he goes there to bring her soul back after going into a near death experience while in Parliament. He finds her in Elysium with Achilles.

Inferno Revisited, a modernised interpretation of Dante written by Peter Howell, was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 17 April 1983.

Auguste Rodin's sculptural group, The Gates of Hell, draws heavily on the Inferno. The component sculpture, Paolo and Francesca, represents Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, whom Dante meets in Canto 5.[48] The version of this sculpture known as The Kiss shows the book that Paolo and Francesca were reading. Other component sculptures include Ugolino and his children (Canto 33) and The Shades, who originally pointed to the phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" ("Abandon all hope, ye who enter here") from Canto 3.[48] Sculptures of Grief and Despair cannot be assigned to particular sections of the Inferno, but are in keeping with the overall theme. The famous component sculpture The Thinker, near the top of the gate, represents Dante himself.[48] Like The Kiss, it was also produced as an independent work.

Jennifer Strange's collection of drawings and sculpture titled Inspired by Dante; an artist's journey through the Divine Comedy is a contemporary collection of works that have been exhibited in the United States and Italy. Online image gallery with text, translation and commentary.

British artist Tom Phillips illustrated his own translation of the Inferno, published in 1985, with four illustrations per canto.

Graba' made a cycle La Divina Commedia consisting of 111 paintings in 2003 exhibited in the Art Hall Sint-Pietersabdij in Ghent.

British artist Guy Denning's on line Dante project follows on from his exhibition of his Inferno paintings in Bologna in 2011. [4]

Griffiths, Eric; Matthew Reynolds (2005). Dante in English. Penguin Books. ISBN0-14-042388-5. - An essay and anthology about translations of Dante's works into English and other literary works influenced by him.